Shein is officially the biggest polluter in fast fashion. AI is making things worse.

Shein’s emissions are especially high because of its reliance on air shipping, said Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. “AI has wide applications in the fashion industry. It’s not necessarily that AI is bad,” Lu said. “The problem is the essence of Shein’s particular business model.”

Other major brands ship items overseas in bulk, prefer ocean shipping for its lower cost, and have suppliers and warehouses in a large number of countries, which cuts down on the distances that items need to travel to consumers.

This seems to be the nut of it. Direct air shipping is a luxury service people will pay huge mark-ups to enjoy. So luxury designers are exploiting the heavily subsidized and polluting industry to marry the exploitative labor practices of captured populations with the aggressive sales and marketing afforded by our global surveillance system data-driven search business.

Lenier, from Sustainable and Just Future, believes there is no ethical use of AI in the fast fashion industry.

I believe there is no ethical use of the fast fashion industry

Here are the top 15 items when you visit their homepage, click “Men”, and scroll their default sorting.

Ew! Killing the planet for that?

Very interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

At least we will all look fab as the earth burns.

you could put “AI is making things worse.” after just about any sentence and it would probably be true.